


Validity

by GalaxyAqua



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 14:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4524711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/pseuds/GalaxyAqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanami notices, after a while, that Tsumiki is no good at serious relationships. The other had said so from the start. Nanami didn't believe it then, but she believes it now. Because it's the truth. Tsumiki is no good; no good at all. But neither is she.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Validity

**Author's Note:**

> ace-aro nanamiki because I needed to vent

Day after day, she comes and goes.   
  
Like water, Tsumiki slips through her fingers, and washes away her worries with a smile on that pretty face - only for them to return full-force in the nurse's absence.   
  
Nanami notices, after a while, that Tsumiki is no good at serious relationships. The other had said so from the start. Nanami didn't believe it then, but she believes it now. Because it's the truth. She is no good; no good at all.   
  
But it's not Tsumiki's fault.   
  
It's not Tsumiki's fault that her touch is clingy, and her voice always pleading; that she needs attention. It's not her fault that she always feels like a burden - or feels unwanted; needs to be loved.   
  
It's not Tsumiki's fault, just as much as it isn't Nanami's fault, that they're not as close as lovers should be.   
  
Tsumiki comes and goes, but Nanami always stays.   
  
Tsumiki hungers for affection, but Nanami strays away.   
  
It's almost a miracle, Nanami thinks, that they are still together. Regardless of it all, she still wants to treat her girlfriend right, she really does. No matter what Tsumiki implies, it is nothing to do with pity. The gamer doesn't think she adores anyone as much as she adores her klutzy, stammering mess of a sweetheart.   
  
But some days, it's hard for her, to say even "I like you, I love you, I think" to someone who has heard it too many times; in the insincere voices of many others. It's hard for her - she, who had never held anyone in her heart before her brother and father - to use careful words like that, and to deal with the subsequent overwhelming murmurs of "I do love you too, s-so much, you are my one and only, I'm r-really sorry for existing...! But I love, love, love you so very much. Please forgive me! I’m so sorry, for someone like me to love someone like you, it’s –!"  
  
It's heavy.   
  
It's not fair to Tsumiki that some things only seem to run one way; and yet Nanami does not want to let her go, to someone who could probably shower the nurse with gifts and sweet caresses – all the things Tsumiki wants that Nanami does not know if she can provide. She tries her best, she really does.

Nanami sometimes feels that maybe it’s a problem she can never fix.   
  
Tsumiki is honey and sugar and diamonds to her; but Nanami knows nothing of how to express it. Or even what she wants to express. Something common, like hugs and kisses, would be wasted on her. Nanami doesn't like the gestures too much herself, and Tsumiki cannot take them without guessing at an ulterior motive.   
  
Nanami thinks this makes them strange. Could couples without romantic gestures be considered couples at all?  
  
She is content with just her significant other’s company.   
  
She wishes to know if this is asking too little.   
  
Because still, Tsumiki wants and yearns for her attention, her care, her forgiveness - and Nanami feels impeccably guilty because she still doesn't know what all of that truly means.   
  
So she watches her come and go.  
  
What is love, she wonders.   
  
"L-love is everything - our hearts, our souls, our forever together." Tsumiki tells her quietly, hesitantly, when they're sitting in the kitchen sharing stories over cups of milk and tea.   
  
Nanami wonders if there's really something so dramatic - so universal. She wonders if not feeling it means that she is broken, somehow. "Oh, I see." She replies with delay, a smile in affirmative. She doesn't see. "That sounds very nice... I think."  
  
"It's... it's … yes, it’s nice." Tsumiki replies with a shy smile. Her response almost seems scripted, but Nanami doesn’t notice it at that point in time. "Because e-even though I'm so worthless, I can s-still love you for eternity...! And if it's not too much to ask... I'd h-hope that you would love me too... I'm sorry! I'm being selfish!"  
  
"I love you," Nanami says as definitively as she can, but though she feels happy, she doesn't feel over the moon. She doesn't feel the amazing thing love is supposed to be. "Don't be sorry. You did nothing wrong."

And she didn’t. She hadn’t. Tsumiki had not done a single thing wrong.

Nanami blamed herself.

That night, when the anxious, attention-seeking nurse craves her touch, she gives it. But Nanami still wonders, constantly, if loving someone and loving someone’s company could be two different things.

She figures it out, eventually. Her indifference to affection and intimacy. It’s given a name. An identity. A face, if she’s really specific – of purples and greys and black and white.

She’s unsettled, but informed. It feels almost like nothing and everything in her life had become aligned.  

One too many sessions at _Gender and Sexuality 101_ with Ibuki Mioda would do that to a person, in all honesty.

She tells Tsumiki the moment she figures it out, because there is no merit to hiding things in relationships. Not if they are to remain pure and clear as spring rain; where both parties know each other better than they know themselves, and where both parties are mutually comfortable with their arrangement, however it may be.

“I’m probably… asexual.” She says, and it feels foreign in her mouth. She had not been scared prior to the confession, but she’s suddenly stiffly afraid of rejection, and wonders if she’s just compromised their entire relationship because of the single drop of revelation. What’s one more, she thinks, and comes completely clean – letting the ripples take her where they may. “And aromantic… maybe.”

Tsumiki parts perfect pink lips and smiles sweetly; looking genuinely happy for reasons Nanami cannot fathom. “I know.”

Nanami is informed a week later that Tsumiki is the same. Asexual aromantic, though she scorned the stereotype, and felt the need to show the world she wasn’t an unfeeling robot like they thought she was supposed to be – that she was wild, saucy and free; loveless, sexless, and happy.  

And it all gets easier for them both, once all the skeletons are out of the closet.

“Ah, by the way,” Nanami asks, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “You always said you loved me…”

“I do,” Tsumiki replies, “B-but, it’s platonic… y-you’re the closest… thing to love, I think, I will ever have. Forgive me.”

The gamer nods her forgiveness, but then tilts her head in gentle questioning, “And that night when we…”

“I, I just thought it would make …you happy,” the nurse confesses, pressing her palms together and practically begging to be forgiven once more. “I-I’m so, so sorry that I overstepped your boundaries…! I will never do it again, in all the years that we live!”

And Nanami promises her the same.

Tsumiki still comes and goes.

Nanami wonders about one final thing.

“Your… nightly expeditions.” The gamer mentions, a non-critical comment on the coming and going, and on the flashing of Tsumiki’s skin; the attracting of feral eyes to her platonic soulmate’s aesthetically pleasing appearance. “Why… do you go? If I may ask.”

“I… it’s just… attention.” She admits shamefully, eyes overcast, and long, dark lashes brushing against her cheeks as she sobs. “Not affection. I don’t want affection. I want them to look – but I don’t want to be touched! I’m such a, such a terrible human being!”

Nanami presses a tissue to her face, and shakes her head. “You are … fine. Please don’t worry.”

“I’m so sorry.” Tsumiki says, her cries softening to mere hiccups. “It’s not you. I-I can’t stop. This is… this is the way I am.”

“I forgive you. Go wherever you need.”

So Nanami watches as Tsumiki comes and goes.

No matter where she goes, she always comes back, after all.

“I will be with her forever.” Tsumiki would say, when people ask of their relationship; when they don’t believe Tsumiki is as asexual as her partner. When they don’t know what to make of a girl who craves attention but not love, and a girl who desires good company and good video games but little else. “As long as Nanami’s okay with it.”

And she is. 


End file.
